This creamy spelt salad folds chewy grains into a mayonnaise-and-lemon dressing with crunchy peppers, cucumber, and carrot. Spelt needs a long simmer, but the salad itself is just chopping and stirring. A pinch of cayenne at the end keeps it from being the quiet dish...
Hearty Wheat Berry Salad with Apricots & Cranberries
This hearty, wholesome wheat berry salad is a chewy, nutty make-ahead dream, packed with chickpeas, snow peas, and sweet dried fruit under a lemon-walnut vinaigrette. Wheat berries take their time — there's an overnight soak involved — but the active work is...
Easy Homemade Polenta: Soft, Firm & Fried
Perfect polenta — 3 ways: soft, baked, or fried — is the one recipe that answers three different dinners from a single pot. The coarse-ground yellow cornmeal can be creamy tonight, then chilled into slabs to bake or fry later in the week. The trick is in the details —...
Hearty Quinoa-Stuffed Acorn Squash
This quinoa-stuffed acorn squash recipe fills sweet roasted squash with a Southwestern mix of quinoa, black beans, corn, and jalapeño. The squash halves roast while the stuffing cooks on the stove, so the whole thing lands on the table in about an hour and forty...
Creamy Butternut Squash Barley Risotto
This roasted butternut squash and barley risotto gives you all the comfort of the classic with the chew of pearl barley, and the squash roasts while you stir. A splash of white wine and a shower of Parmesan at the end pull it together. It's a weekend-feeling dish...
Hearty Veggie & Barley Stuffed Peppers
These vibrant barley-stuffed bell peppers are a complete dinner in an edible package: mushrooms and quick-cooking barley bound with egg and mozzarella, piled into sweet peppers. They bake up golden on top while the pepper walls turn tender enough to cut with a fork....
Savory Couscous Cakes with Black Bean Salsa
These savory couscous cakes with black bean salsa turn pantry couscous into crisp-edged little griddle cakes, topped with a fresh corn-and-bean salsa. The batter comes together in minutes and the cakes cook fast, so most of your time goes into letting them set up...
Spiced Chickpea & Apricot Couscous (30-Minute Meal!)
This spiced chickpea and couscous bowl is a 30-minute dinner built on a warm trio of ginger, cumin, and turmeric. The spices bloom in olive oil with garlic and green onions before the chickpeas join, which is what makes such a simple bowl taste slow-cooked. Serve it...
Hearty Veggie Chili with Cornmeal Dumplings
This hearty vegetarian chili with cornmeal dumplings cooks in one pot in about 35 minutes, thanks to canned chickpeas and kidney beans that need nothing more than a rinse. The dumplings steam right on top of the thickened chili, so you get stew and bread in a single...
Easy 25-Minute Falafel Pitas
These 25-minute falafel pitas with spicy aioli come together from one can of chickpeas and a handful of pantry spices, which makes them my favorite busy-night dinner. The patties pan-fry in olive oil until the edges turn deep golden, and shredded carrot keeps the...
Hearty White Bean & Walnut Burgers
Cannellini Bean and Walnut Burgers are herby, nutty, and pan-crisped in ten minutes — white beans and toasted walnuts bound with soft breadcrumbs, stacked on toasted buns with ranch, spinach, and tomato. A welcome change from black-bean everything. Dinner in...
Creamy Vegetable & White Bean Risotto
Creamy Vegetable and Cannellini Bean Risotto is real risotto on a weeknight timeline — Arborio rice stirred to a creamy finish with mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, and white beans. The beans turn a side dish into a meal. Thirty-five minutes of stirring goes a long way....












